KALQ Interface Design, and How the Enron Scandal Might Make Touchscreen Typing Easier

I send text messages less frequently with my iPhone than I did in the T9 days. I get so frustrated trying to tap out a text that I often wait until I get to a computer to switch to e-mail and a proper keyboard. The interface just sucks, and I cannot remember the last time I was able to send a text without backspacing repeatedly.

One part of the problem is the tiny buttons. Another part of the problem might be the QWERTY layout itself. Ideally what you want is "two-thumb tapping," where the keyboard's letters are divided in such a way that you're alternating between right- and left-thumbs for each keystroke; a group of international researchers reckons this increases efficiency and reduces errors. With that in mind they've created KALQ, a split keyboard with a new layout.

KALQ is a split keyboard for touchscreen devices. The position of the keyboard on the display and the assignment of letters to keyslots were informed by a series of studies conducted with the aim of maximizing typing performance. KALQ is used by gripping the device from its corners. Trained users achieved an entry rate of 37 wpm (5% error rate). This is an improvement of 34% over their baseline performance with a standard touch-QWERTY system. This rate is the highest ever reported for two-thumb typing on a touchscreen device.What's really fascinating is the source of the raw data they used: The Enron scandal of 2001. As Pacific Standard reports:To optimize the layout for real-world use, the researchers relied on a collection of some 600,000 emails sent between Enron executives before the energy giant's collapse. (The so-called "Enron Corpus," made public during a subsequent federal investigation, is a treasure trove for computer scientists because it captures "email English" at its most casual and conversational.) After evaluating more than 5.6 million possible key configurations, the team landed on a single best design.

The researchers, who hail from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Informatics, America's University of Montana and Scotland's University of St. Andrews, are preparing a version of KALQ for Android phones that will be ready next month. (Us iPhone users are left in the lurch.)

I think the biggest issue with typing on touchscreens is that there's no tactile feedback. It's a step backwards, since the keyboard takes up a third of the viewing area. Also, you have to look at the keyboard to type, and since most thumbs cover up multiple keys, you have to search for every key every time. I'll rue the day when I can no longer buy a phone with a physical keyboard.
Android's voice-to-text sucks. iPhone 5's autocorrect is surprisingly effective(coming from an Apple hater), allowing even the most illiterate to compose complete sentences.

I believe the answer is clearly no. That layout is actually quite terrible, even for hunting and pecking. It's funny that when boffins put so much calculation into their theories they can often end up with exactly the opposite of what they set out to produce. I'm just sad that so much time is being put into such a clearly flawed design. However, time may prove me wrong. I doubt it.

A set of corporate emails would be a poor database to draw on for design. There is nothing casual about even internal corporate emails. The HR requirements make everyone almost Victorian in sensibility and the backside-covering makes euphemistic circumlocution highly prized.
Alternative keyboard designs rarely catch on because they cause memory muscle confusion. Users find themselves constantly intuitively trying use one interface as another one.

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